How the food changes as you move south, and what to order in each region.
Vietnamese food is not one cuisine. It changes clearly as you travel south, and a journey along the length of the country is one of the more legible food routes in Asia.
In the north the flavours are restrained and the broths are clean. Hanoi is the home of pho, eaten at breakfast rather than dinner, and of bun cha, grilled pork in a bowl of sweet and sour broth. Herbs are used with discipline and chilli is offered rather than assumed.
The centre, around Hue and Hoi An, is the most complex. Hue cooking descends from the imperial court and arrives in many small, precise dishes. Hoi An has its own specialities that barely exist elsewhere, including cao lau, made with water from a specific set of local wells.
In the south the cooking turns sweeter and more tropical. The Mekong Delta brings coconut, freshwater fish, fruit that does not travel and a generosity of herbs that surprises visitors who thought they already knew the cuisine.
Practical advice: eat where there is a queue of locals and a high turnover, choose stalls that cook to order, and drink bottled or filtered water. A cooking class is genuinely worth a morning, and the market visit that precedes it usually teaches more than the kitchen does.
Who it suits: travellers happy to eat on plastic stools as well as in restaurants, and anyone who wants a clear thread to follow across a long north to south route.
Written by Beatrice Barazzetti for the Dream Destination Journal.
